On February 20, 1962, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, a 40-year-old Marine pilot named John Glenn climbed into a tiny capsule called Friendship 7 on top of an Atlas rocket. America was deep in the Space Race against the Soviet Union, and the Soviets had already sent two men around the Earth. The whole country was watching to see if Glenn could finally match them. Engineers had crossed their fingers through ten delays, and millions of Americans gathered around TVs and radios to listen.
At 9:47 a.m. the engines roared, and Glenn shot up into the sky. Five minutes later he was floating in orbit, racing around the planet at 17,500 miles per hour. He looped Earth three times in just under five hours, calling out 'Zero G and I feel fine!' and gazing down at the bright blue oceans, the lights of Perth, Australia (where residents had turned every lamp on for him), and dazzling 'fireflies' of frozen droplets sparkling outside his window. Mission control got nervous when an alert hinted that his heat shield might be loose. They told him to keep his rockets attached during reentry just in case. Glenn landed safely in the Atlantic, the heat shield holding strong.
America went wild. There were ticker-tape parades, a hero's welcome at the White House, and millions of kids who suddenly wanted to be astronauts. John Glenn went on to become a U.S. senator from Ohio, and at age 77 he rocketed back into space on the Space Shuttle, becoming the oldest person to fly there. One Marine pilot, three orbits, and a country's belief in space launched into overdrive.
